


Not So Different, After All

by Zakk



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (for being amazing and encouraging me to write ilu guys), Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Oneshot, Sickfic, Weird Cherub Things, i blame the strilonde discord, i mean probably i might change my mind but STILL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 10:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12479932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zakk/pseuds/Zakk
Summary: "She rubbed her throat gently, still feeling tired and sore. The news wasn't really very interesting right now. She emptied the remainder of the glass in one swift gulp and rose to her feet. Padding over to the window, she pulled the blinds and lifted it open. The sun had pulled over the horizon and now began its path of ascent, dyeing the sky in shades of icy cyan and yellow. A cool late-autumn breeze blows in past her, tingling her face and making her giggle. The chilly air feels nice in her stuffy nose. She leans into the windowsill, crossing her arms and staring out onto the kingdom she called home. Even this early in the morning, there were already cars driving through the streets below, people milling about, the stirring of birds just only beginning to chirp. Regardless, the town is near silent, placid and mostly still. Calliope feels happy here. Peaceful. "





	Not So Different, After All

**Author's Note:**

> i regret nothing

Calliope, for all of her time spent analyzing and theorizing about humans, their behavior, their biology;

had not seen this coming. It was entirely possible for human illnesses to cross species lines, this was something she’d known for quite some time. On Earth, such transmissions were fairly well documented— the concept of ‘zoonoses’, unfortunately not nearly as adorable as they sounded, had been a concern among human societies for quite a long time. In the haze of post-game victory euphoria and then the immediate burden of planning, building, legislating, negotiating and every other little pain-in-the-arse logistical issue that came with creating an entirely new planet and it’s accompanying societies, it had slipped her mind entirely.

To their credit, this had apparently been a bridge that was crossed between the troll and human population of the meteor. Stress and lack of sleep, plus unconventional and sometimes downright unhealthy sleeping arrangements had contributed to their share of sniffles being passed around. No, Calliope would be _fine_ , she had told herself. Humans and trolls actually had quite a lot in common biologically, it was a no-brainer that there would be germs and other nasties making the not-so-enormous jump. Calliope, though, was...

Different. Different in a plethora of ways. Ways including (but not at all limited to) very basic biological systems. Like being a green-carapaced skeletal monster that ate raw meat and sweets exclusively. Those were some big differences, if she did say so herself. Differences big enough to discourage, if not preclude entirely, the possibility of any kind of interspecies pathogenic transmission.

She was, unfortunately, totally and absolutely wrong.

She taps her claws against the crown of her skull impatiently. She was _tired_ , in ways she hadn't felt since just after the game had ended. It sank into her muscles, laid itself deep into her brain until she could perceive nothing but staticky fog. Her nose whistled slightly as she breathed, like she'd just taken a giant whiff of dust. Her head ached incessantly, and her entire body hurt like she'd just gone 3 rounds with Yaldabaoth.

Lifting her head up from her position spread out on the living room couch, her nasal opening ran sticky with fluid. Nasty. Perhaps her shared apartment needed to be cleaned? That would explain why her nose itched and leaked the way it did. The muscle aches, however...perhaps she simply hadn't been sleeping like she should. The previous looming threat of falling asleep and waking up to find a trail of mayhem in her wake at the hands of her megalomaniacal brother had made her hesitant to pursue rest for quite some time. Her sleep continued to be fitful even now, a year and a half on. She mouths his name against her fingers, feeling the movement of her jaw as she does so. Nothing happens. She is still quite firmly rooted in wakefulness. Her body is hers, and hers alone. The thought is comforting.

She wipes her nose on the collar of her tank top and shifts into a sitting position on the suede couch. Daylight had begun to break through the shades of the high rise apartment's windows. Calliope supposed that most of the building's inhabitants would be rising soon. Ye gods, did her throat feel dry. That is probably something she should remedy, and swiftly.

The morning news continues to drone softly from the TV when Calliope returns from the adjoining kitchen, glass of ice and soda in hand. She sinks into the couch, plinking her glass down on the end table (and onto one of Roxy’s handmade coasters with little cats on them) beside her. Something about a new mall opening downtown, preparations for a carapacian holiday next month...

She rubbed her throat gently, still feeling tired and sore. The news wasn't really very interesting right now. She emptied the remainder of the glass in one swift gulp and rose to her feet. Padding over to the window, she pulled the blinds and lifted it open. The sun had pulled over the horizon and now began it's path of ascent, dyeing the sky in shades of icy cyan and yellow. A cool late-autumn breeze blows in past her, tingling her face and making her giggle. The chilly air feels nice in her stuffy nose. She leans into the windowsill, crossing her arms and staring out onto the kingdom she called home. Even this early in the morning, there were already cars driving through the streets below, people milling about, the stirring of birds just only beginning to chirp. Regardless, the town is near silent, placid and mostly still. Calliope feels happy here. Peaceful.

Even when her throat feels like she's been swallowing sand. She clears it, trying to rid herself of the unpleasantly ticklish feeling. She succeeds only in exacerbating it, and tries again more aggressively, but nothing comes of it. Maybe there was pollen blowing in the wind outside? Though she'd never really known if cherubs could _have_ pollen allergies. Blast, what even was pollen? Some kind of weird, floaty, runny nose inducing particulate, she knew that much. Perhaps she'd look that up later. She yawned, spreading her jaws all the way out, feeling them click and shift. Footsteps tread softly on the carpet behind her. In strolls Roxy, who wraps her (so soft, so warm) arms around the cherub’s torso, leaning her head onto Calliope’s back.

“Hey babe. Doin’ the snakey thing?” Roxy slurs sleepily into her back. Calliope can’t help her little flush of embarrassment, from the sudden embrace or the lewd reference, she isn’t sure. She’d blush, if she could.

“Or, wait. Would that be like, nasty? ‘Cause of weird cherub things?” she asks, torn between genuine curiosity and the precipice of laughter.

“Sligh-ly, ye-h.” She answers, mouth still agape. Roxy laughs lightly into her girlfriend’s soft pink tank top. Calliope begins to close her mouth when her breath catches in her lungs, forcing her to cough deeply, the sound reverberating in the room. One cough begets another, and another, and another, until she can barely get air in at all.

“Hoooly shit, Callie.” Roxy utters concernedly when her fit lets up. She rubs Calliope’s back soothingly.

“Thought it was weird when I woke up and you weren’t in bed. You feelin’ sick? ’S why you were out here?” Calliope shakes her head and rubs at the back of her neck.

“Just couldn’t sleep.” She admits, feeling bad for leaving Roxy without so much as a word. Was she feeling sick? Was such a thing possible?

“That was a hell of a coughin’ fit, babe. You sure you’re okay?” Roxy asks, tracing firm, slow circles into Calliope’s back. The feeling is soothing, incredibly nice on her sore body. Calliope hums in response, knowing it to be noncommittal but uncertain how to answer. Roxy shifts forward, hugging her girlfriend closer.

“Gettin’ taller, sweetcheeks.” Roxy notes, laying her head on Calliope’s shoulder. Yep, she’s right— Roxy didn’t have to bend down to hug her anymore. Whether or not this is a good thing, Calliope isn’t sure. The 3 or so inches she’s grown since her 19th birthday are beginning to show. Goodness, that had been fun. Though Calliope didn’t really have a ‘birthday’ proper, Roxy had insisted on celebrating one for her. The two had eventually settled on the date her chat handle had been registered, Roxy extrapolating it from Calliope’s computer data to be sometime after the second week of November; and the rest had been history from there. The fifteenth of November that year, they’d thrown a huge party with half of the damn Consort Kingdom invited. Roxy had referred to it as her ‘hatchday bash’. Oh, goodness, that date was fast approaching once more. Calliope couldn’t help but feel a pang of excitement at the prospect. Along with a tightening in her chest as she descended once more into another coughing fit. Roxy clapped her a few times on the back in an attempt to help her clear whatever was upsetting her lungs. She presses her ear to Calliope’s back and listens for a moment and, sure enough, hears her wheezing loud and clear.

“C’mon, we need’a get you sittin’ down,” Roxy asserts, gently pulling her away from the window. Calliope acquiesces, allowing herself to be moved to the couch. She… really wasn’t doing well, was she? Oh god, what if she was well and truly ill? Cherubs, generally, spend so little time around other living creatures that becoming sick was nigh unheard of. The only time a cherub became ill was when they were already so weak that death was not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’. And the answer was usually ‘soon’.

Roxy shook the cherub from her momentary terror when she laid the back of her hand against Calliope’s forehead. Which wouldn’t accomplish much, given that she didn’t really have skin. But the gesture was appreciated all the same.

“Damnit, hold on.” Roxy announces, quickly walking off in the direction of the bathroom. Calliope can hear the soft clinking of bottles and other items as her girlfriend rummages in the medicine cabinet. She returns, triumphant, with the thermometer in hand. The item is placed in Calliope’s mouth, under the fork of her tongue. It’s a full, uncomfortable minute before the device beeps to indicate it has a result, with Roxy planting herself on the arm of the couch in the meantime. Roxy quickly removes the thermometer, examining the screen. Her face scrunches indecipherably.

“Everything alright, there?” Calliope asks softly, more than a little concerned now.

“I’m… not sure what I was expecting.” She turns over the thermometer to Calliope, who immediately moves to read the little LCD readout. ‘ERR’ flashes in blocky letters.

“’S made for humans. Which, uh…yeah.” Roxy explains, setting the object aside.

“This is prob’bly something we should’a thought about sooner. Shit, Callie, ‘m sorry about that.” She says, patting Calliope’s shoulder.

“Could’a gotten a proper thermometer and a baseline on ya if I’d given any thought to it. Shiiiit.” Roxy laments, throwing her head back dramatically. Calliope stews in her own private moment of fear at Roxy’s admission that something was _wrong_. She’s roused from it quickly when Roxy leans over and pets the top of Calliope’s head. Her hands are warm and feel nice against her skull. Calliope presses back into her palms and chirps, a rasping little crickety sound. She happily soaks up her girlfriend’s gentle attention, feeling a great deal better already. She lets out a strained noise when the urge to cough hits her again, but thankfully refrains from lapsing into yet another full-blown fit.

“Poor baby.” Roxy sighs sympathetically. Calliope’s jaw trembles a bit.

“Do you… believe I’m truly ill? Am I going to be alright?” She mumbles, avoiding Roxy’s eyes. Oh god. She had some kind of human super plague, and was going to die slowly and painfully.

"Callie." She singsongs, caressing her girlfriend’s face.

“You ‘prolly caught a lil’ cold, that’s all. No biggie.” Roxy smooshes her lime green cheeks. They have no give to them, and thusly don’t smoosh very well, but Roxy enjoyed doing it anyway.

“For cherubs, there is generally no such thing as a ‘little’ cold.” Calliope admits, twiddling her thumbs (yet another trait picked up from her human cohabitant.)

“I mean, _normally_ , sure, but you’re kinda a special case. Don’t you guys normally find a nice chunk of space rock and chill on it? Probably no good medicine out on space rocks.” It was a fairly decent point. ‘Medicine’, Calliope thinks. That was something that hadn’t been an option before. If either her brother or herself had been injured, back when it was nothing but the two of them chained up and locked away on a dying planet, that would have been it. They would deal with it, or they would die. Simple as that.

But things were different, now. One of the benefits of social living in a modern era was that a broken leg or a minor illness was no longer a death sentence. Though leg injuries were far from an insurmountable obstacle, it seemed. Of all the ways to remove a limb, though. She was surprised he hadn’t simply dropped dead from blood loss. It had been… interesting, seeing that scene play out in a dream bubble. She saw quite a few of his memories, right after the game ended. It had struck fear deeply into her heart, the mere possibility that he was still alive in any sense at all, but it had merely been a by-product of the game’s end. A highlight reel of sorts. She’d  _hated_ it.

“That is… something of an oversimplification. But yes, more or less.” Calliope says after a while, chewing on a thumb claw.

“So what now, then?”

“Now, you get back in bed and go the hell to sleep, babe.” Roxy explains, promptly sliding to her feet and wrapping her arms around Calliope’s middle. She lifts the cherub from the couch (with a fair amount of effort, as her bony and chitinous body is surprisingly heavy) and holds Calliope up against her chest, snickering all the while.

“Wh- Hey! Bloody hell's bells, Rox. You can’t just—“

“I can and I am, babe.” Roxy laughs, toting her squirming girlfriend back to their shared bedroom. Calliope kicks her legs against the air fruitlessly a few times before simply settling into her girlfriend’s embrace, unable to keep the delighted smile off of her face.Roxy strides over to their bedroom door with girlfriend in tow and struggles a moment with the doorknob before eventually jiggling it open. Sunlight flows in through the curtains and onto their unmade bed, falling over their orchid colored sheets. Vodka Mutini casts his glance back at the two from his perch at the foot of the bed, chirping and flicking his tail.

Roxy sits near the pillows, Calliope perched in her lap. She scooches them both back, flipping their legs so they lay perpendicular with the bottom of the bed, and deposits Calliope beside her. She rubs the cherub’s back, gingerly peppering kisses on her forehead. Arm wrapped tightly around Calliope’s middle, Roxy pulls the lilac and white cloud patterned comforter over them both. She tucks it around Calliope’s back and allows her girlfriend to nuzzle into her shoulder. Mutini stretches out before rising to his paws and ambling over to lay curled up against Calliope’s back, blinking his four eyes owlishly. They rest comfortably there, sleeping well into the day.

—

Calliope wakes again sometime in the afternoon. Roxy fusses over her, wanting to make her comfortable. Apparently, Calliope is not the only one who is sick— Dave caught some kind of cold and must have spread it to Rose, who in turn gave it to Roxy, who acted as a carrier and gave it to her girlfriend. Roxy apologizes profusely for being the cause of Calliope’s discomfort, but she reminds Roxy that this was in no way her fault. Regardless, Roxy insists on coddling and spoiling her, reasoning that Calliope would do the very same for her. The thought puts a flutter in her chest.

Roxy wraps her girlfriend in a heated blanket, makes her tea and curls up next to her in bed. She shifts in to lean against the cherub’s side and taps away on her laptop, chatting with Rose and (mostly jokingly) scolding Dave for putting her in this predicament. Jane sends her get-well wishes and several baked goods, sent zipping over via transportalizer. Though Calliope isn’t really in the mood to eat, she nibbles at them gratefully. Roxy helps herself to a muffin from the small pile and harasses Calliope into drinking more tea, since ‘the last thing we need is for you to go and get all dehydrated, cutie’. (That particular nickname was one of Calliope’s weaknesses, and so she complies immediately and downs the whole mug.)

Staring up at the ceiling, Calliope watches as the colors cast from the various glass light catchers in the room flicker and shift. The sun glinted in them, shades of brilliance in every color possible, falling over a backdrop of the orange and yellow sunset filtering in from outside. She was happy, here. She was loved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not responsible for any cavities, guys.  
> comments, kudos and concrit greatly appreciated.


End file.
